After Scandal and Death, Two Alpine Banks Target Crypto Gold
After Scandal and Death, Two Alpine Banks Aim for Crypto Gold
(Bloomberg) -- Walk into Falcon Private Bank on the Pelikanstrasse in central Zurich and you’re immediately struck by the giant photo of a woman crouched in the sprinter’s starting position, painted head-to-toe in gold.
The image -- a throwback to the Bond movie Goldfinger a half-century ago -- casts the Abu Dhabi-backed firm as the agile adviser you need to get off to a flying start to riches. It’s also part of a plan to overhaul a brand tarnished by the bank’s involvement in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB embezzlement scandal and help advertise its push into a product that most Swiss banks are still too nervous to touch: crypto finance.
“In areas that are new, the big banks cannot move as quickly as the smaller banks,” Stefan Bollhalder, Falcon’s chief investment officer, said in an interview in Zurich. Larger rivals may also think “it’s not worth the risk, so they leave it to the smaller ones.”
Falcon Bank and Liechtenstein’s Bank Frick are among a very limited number of the 150-plus private banks in Switzerland and the neighboring duchy that have begun offering clients a direct way to invest in the volatile asset class. While Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS Group AG have shied away from crypto, Falcon and Frick are tapping pent-up demand for banking services from Crypto Valley, as the Swiss city of Zug has dubbed itself.
“Crypto Valley is almost unbanked,” Michael Helbling, head of Falcon’s crypto desk, said in the roundtable interview. “We have seen tremendous interest.” Two notable players that Falcon works with today in Zug are Bitcoin Suisse AG, run by Crypto Valley pioneer Niklas Nikolajsen, and Crypto Broker AG, the bank says.
Troubled Times
Falcon is starting to move past troubled times. Its Singapore unit was closed by regulators for failing to adequately flag $1.27 billion in suspicious deposits linked to Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal. A branch manager in Singapore was jailed and a Swiss investigation continues.
Mindful of this, Falcon says it did its homework before entering the crypto market. So far, it’s offering investment strategy and brokerage services.
“The bank has learned its lessons,” said Gianmarco Timpanaro, Falcon’s marketing head, “and there was a really clear prerequisite to have all the compliance and legal sign-offs before we would enter this kind of business.”
That meant sharing its business plan with Swiss bank regulator Finma. Falcon also employs a firm of money-laundering software experts to vet new clients by scrutinizing their blockchain for red flags. Falcon says it has turned away some potential crypto investors and will continue to do so.
Blockchain Startups
A 90-minute drive from Falcon in downtown Zurich, authorities in Liechtenstein are working on a law to promote blockchain startups. The 160-square-kilometer country approved its first crypto fund before Switzerland -- and Liechtenstein’s crown prince and regent appears to endorse crypto business and other entrepreneurial business models, Bank Frick CEO Edi Woegerer said in an interview at the bank’s headquarters in Balzers.
Tucked into a valley between Switzerland and Austria, the bank is also seeking to move on from a troubled past: Four years ago, its former CEO Juergen Frick was shot dead by an angry investor who had tried to extort him, according to the bank. The suspect fled the scene with his body discovered months later, dead from a gunshot wound.
Woegerer took over after the CEO’s shock death. Determined to turn the page, he’s happier talking about the bank’s future -- and the advantages it gets from marketing digital currency services. “We get exposure we couldn’t buy,” Woegerer said.
The bank looked at cryptocurrencies more than four years ago, but struggled with the technology until they flew in a 19-year-old expert from California for six months. Today it focuses on serving intermediaries such as brokers or crypto exchanges. Wealthy clients can open an account but aren’t the bank’s focus, Woegerer said.
Client Scrutiny
Bank Frick also says its wary of the risks posed by the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies and is in regular contact with Liechtenstein’s regulator, the FMA, which is supportive of the crypto business. Answering their, and correspondent bank, queries is more of a challenge than keeping the bank’s reputation intact, Woegerer said.
While the blockchain, a digital log underpinning every cryptocurrency transaction, guarantees an audit trail for each coin, the ability of bitcoin owners to stay behind the scenes has attracted cyber criminals to Crypto Valley. Last year, Finma warned the public about digital coin scams, shut down one operator and opened investigations into others. Falcon’s Bollhalder said he welcomes the crackdown on rogue actors and attempts to eliminate regulatory gray areas.
“If we want to be a crypto-nation, we need to have clear guidelines,” he said.
Daniel Thelesklaf, director of Liechtenstein’s Financial Intelligence Unit which combats money laundering, said banks that have already received a rap on the knuckles are especially keen not to make the same mistake twice.
“Banks that have been sanctioned for non-compliance often have a higher compliance level compared to others, after implementing the measures to remedy the issue,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Hugo Miller in Geneva at hugomiller@bloomberg.net;Patrick Winters in Zurich at pwinters3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.